A CITY IN HIGH CENTRAL TURKEY

Located high in central Turkey, Cappadocia is like a city on another planet. Many thousands of years ago, volcanic ash covered the land before humans lived there. After a long time, the ash turned into a kind of soft rock. This rock then was shaped by wind and rain and created different rock formations. Today, some of the natural rock formations reach forty meters into the air. These rock formations are called ‘fairy chimneys’. Much later, more than two thousand years ago, people began to cut homes into the soft rock, both above and below the ground. In fact, people didn’t only make homes there. They also made stables for animals and also places to keep food and other supplies. There are hundreds of these cave rooms. Most of them are now museums or hotels and only some of them are used as homes. There are many underground cities in Cappadocia but Derinkuyu is the most interesting one of all. Derinkuyu is eleven levels deep and has 600 entrances. There are many miles of tunnels which connect Derinkuyu to other underground cities. Scientists believe that thousands of people lived in this underground city. It is truly an underground city with rooms to sleep in, water wells , water tanks, meeting rooms and even bathrooms. In addition to Derinkuyu, more than forty complete underground cities and 200 underground structures were discovered in Cappadocia, many of which connect to each other via tunnels. Long ago, water and wind helped to create the wonders of Cappadocia, but now people are trying to save it from being destroyed by the same water and wind because they want Cappadocia to last for thousands of years. In 1985, it became a World Heritage site, which means that it is one of the most special places in the world.